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Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Gas Drilling & Communities: A Tale of Two Pennsylvania Cities

One is booming, with an economic growth rate of 7.8%, making it the 7th fastest economically growing area in the USA. A 7.8% economic growth rate is strong, even Chinese-like.

The other now has the highest poverty rate at 41.3% in America for communities with more than 65,000 people. It has eclipsed Flint, Michigan.

The booming town is Williamsport, and the poorest in the nation is Reading.

Williamsport in Lycoming County is best known for hosting the wonderful Little League World Series each year in early August. Williamsport is also in the heart of the gas drilling boom triggered by the Marcellus Shale development.

Reading is a proud town, the home of the minor league Reading Phillies, with a great manufacturing history and tradition. It has no gas drilling and is not above the Marcellus Shale. Yesterday it was featured in the New York Times, with a picture of people in a line waiting at a food pantry.

While Gas drilling by itself is not going to make Pennsylvania's economy successful, since Pennsylvania's economy is one of the biggest in the nation and world, highly diversified, with no one industry dominating it. Pennsylvania is not North Dakota, Alaska, or Wyoming, with a few hundred thousand jobs in total, where energy production alone can make the entire state boom or bust. Instead the Commonwealth is an economic powerhouse with more than 6 million jobs and 12 million people.

Gas drilling also creates a set of impacts and costs that must be minimized by strong regulation and reasonable taxation. But just as true and as important, gas drilling is creating important opportunities for communities, especially in the 6 counties where Marcellus wells are concentrated, and should for the entire state of Pennsylvania if sound policies are followed.

Or to put it another way, would you prefer to be the Mayor of Williamsport or Reading managing the problems and opportunities that both have? Would you prefer to be looking for a job in Williamsport or Reading to support your family?

2 comments:

Excellent post, but please be sure to consider, that alot of the Profits of Marcellus Shale, are going to out of state, and Multi National Corporation, that are NOT paying their fare share of taxes to Pennsylvania. Who will PAY for the Environmental Cleanup, that these wells potentially could cause, if not regulated and inspected properly? Who paid for the DESTRUCTION, that the Coal Industry did to Pennsylvania? The Bankrupt Coal Companies?

10 years from now, would you rather be looking for a job in Williamsport or Reading? This is a gold rush. Like every other instance of natural resource exploitation, the community will be destroyed when the resource is no longer economically viable to extract and everyone moves down the lane.

About Me

I am an expert on energy, environment, green economy, competitive electric markets, and utility regulation with unique experience in and out of government. I am a Democratic candidate for Governor of PA. See www.hangerforgovernor.com. You can email me at john@hangerforgovernor.com. I have been both the Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and Commissioner of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission. I have made leading regulatory decisions, testified to Congress and state legislatures, and been interviewed countless times, appearing on CBS evening News, NBC Evening New, CNN, BBC, CBC, and many more outlets. I am a 1984 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and 1979 graduate of Duke University.